The ‘warm’ vaccine formulations developed by scientists at IISc and biotech firm Mynvax result in antibodies that neutralise all current SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, an independent evaluation of the formulations done by CSIRO, Australia, — the agency that had done animal tests for the Oxford-Covishield vaccine candidate last year — has shown.
The findings have been published (on Thursday) in the peer-reviewed ACS Infectious Diseases journal and will pave the way for clinical development leading to human trials. The published study was led by Prof Raghavan Varadarajan from IISc and TOI first reported about the vaccine in November 2020.
As per the paper, researchers have shown the formulations triggered a strong immune response in mice, protected hamsters from the virus, and remained stable at 37°C up to a month and at 100°C for up to 90 minutes — living up to its “warm vaccine” tag.
Most vaccines require refrigeration to remain effective — Oxford-AstraZeneca must be kept between 2-8°C; Pfizer requires specialised cold storage at -70°C.
The IISc-Mynvax vaccine has been designed by genetically engineering a domain of the S-Protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, called the Receptor Binding Domain (RBD), which attaches itself to the Ace2 receptor on the surface of target cells in the human respiratory tract. This enables the virus to enter the body and cause the infection.
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